A new sunshine
RANA SIDDIQUI
|
Shruti Shukla paints lesser known facets of Bihar on her first canvas.
|
When I picked up the brush at 45, I saw that I could still paint
PHOTO: V.V. KRISHNAN
LOW PROFILE Shruti Shukla at work
They say learning has no age bar. Blessed are those who have a perceptive mind that can store important moments of life and give them creative expression when they like.
Veteran journalist, social activist and environmentalist Shruti Shukla is one of them. Having covered several Naxal-infested areas, Bihar and forgotten tourist destinations for over a decade for two major dailies in her prime, Shukla, who turned 60 recently, has now turned to painting. And the subject on her canvas is forgotten facets of bygone Bihar that she had seen during her journalistic career.
A tribute
Hence, her oil on canvas works pay tribute to people uncared for, less travelled but spectacular roads, hot springs and so on. Her collection of 50 paintings can be seen at The Uttarayan Basement, 1/3, Shanti Niketan, New Delhi this coming Saturday from 5 to 8 p.m. and on Sunday from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m.
One of her works shows a woman in a torn sari peeping out of a broken door. She relates, “This woman caught my attention while I was coming back after covering the Jehanabad massacre (in the early 1970s). Seeing her peeping through the door of a dilapidated house, surrounded by vast land, I asked her what she was doing in that deserted place. To my shock, she told me that she was the wife of the Rajput landlord, to whom this land belonged. But they could not establish their ownership on it because of the Naxalites. They would take away all the agricultural products that they cultivated on that land. She was standing on her own land. Yet she was impoverished.”
Another painting is that of a baby elephant in the Ganga who was bitten by a ghariyal during one of India’s biggest cattle fairs in Sonpur.
One more painting shows the famous hot spring at Bheembandh, near Munger, “now completely inaccessible because of Naxal presence. So hot was its water that we used to dip rice tied in a small potli and it would get boiled,” she recounts. There is a painting of a smooth, shiny road built during 1910-15 at Chakradharpur in Jharkhand. “It is now defunct because it saw the murder of an SP by the Naxals. This smooth road would allow the cars to move without changing gears,” recalls Shruti.
Importance of the subject
Several other paintings also depict the positive side of the state. But sometimes the subject becomes more important than the technique. She shares, “I used to paint during my school days and exhibited too. But my personal life was a little too harsh on me, so I postponed the idea of painting to later. When I picked up the brush at 45, I saw that I could still paint. My granddaughter helps with ideas often.” But, says Shruti, she is full of ideas she has yet to project on the canvases. “First, I wanted to show the positive side of Bihar,” she concludes.
Printer friendly
page
Send this article to Friends by
E-Mail
Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
